Vandalism and graffiti making are both categorised under the same sub-heading, nonetheless there is a very thin line between graffiti making and vandalism. Legally it all boils down to permission if you don’t have the permission to write or paint, it is a crime.
The law does not distinguish between a Rembrandt-calibre painting and an intentional act of vandalism. There ar 2 varieties of graffiti: “bombing,” that is volume-based, with writers progressing to tag as many places as possible, and there is “burning,” which is an artistic enterprise. Young kids who paint on the walls are in some way screaming to be heard. Modern graffiti is widely acknowledged as art.
It has been exhibited in museums and art galleries across the globe since its earliest stages. Street art has become wildly marketable and is well known by establishments just like the borough repository and also the repository of town of recent royal house. Graffiti has come a long way since the Seventies when fly-by-night taggers sprayed their work on bridge abutments or subway cars then slipped away before the authorities arrived. These days, fashion labels use it in their ikon shoots.
Huge corporations include it in their ad campaigns. In museums and auction homes, it’s been rebranded with an aesthetic new name: aerosol art. Cities ought to work to make and preserve legal venues where aspiring artists, who wish to remain safe, can work and paint. The explosion of art adorning 5Pointz brought tourists to the world and international acclaim.
5Pointz was a rare collaboration between a real-estate developer and a bunch of street artists. In 1993, when Long Island town was beset by crime, the developer, Jerry Wolkoff, allowed a crew of taggers to decorate his buildings at 45-46 Davis Street with a wild array of colourful, swirling murals. For 20 years, 5Pointz was an offbeat tourist destination that not only attracted thousands of visitors, but also helped transform Long Island City into the thriving residential neighbourhood it is today. 5Pointz eventually became “the world’s largest outdoor aerosol museum,” in the words of Eric Frank Baum, a professional for the artists, but its existence was always predicated on Mr. Wolkoff tearing it down and developing the complex, that he ultimately did in 2014.
Before the demolition, the artists tried several times to stop it — asking city officials to grant the complex landmark status, even attempting to buy 5Pointz themselves, Mr. Baum said. They filed suit in territorial division Court in brooklyn shortly when mr. Wolkoff destroyed their art, sending in a team of painters to whitewash the graffiti.
The discretionary nature of however graffiti is removed or preserved highlights a remarkable dissonance: the social-political form of government rejects the artist, and therefore the conditions that make the art, unless the art is somehow accepted on the establishment’s terms. Enter Banksy: a British street artist, and self-described vandal, who has become a celebrated figure in the world of elite art.
Banksy’s work has unintentionally reignited the “art or vandalism” debate: though the British government has been vigilant in removing his trademark stencil art, labelling it “vandalism,” his original works and knockoffs have price over the last decade. His work is often extremely satiric of firm rules and politics. John Lindsay, the progressive New York politician who served as mayor from 1966 to 1973, declared war on graffiti in 1972. He understood that graffiti signalled that informal social controls and law enforcement had broken down in New York’s public spaces, making them vulnerable to even greater levels of disorder and law-breaking. The truth is that despite the acceptance of graffiti, it needs the law so that it can function outside of it. This is where innovation is born, and this is what pushes the art to evolve.
Somebody should question the status quo – or we’ll grow stagnant. Some folks might not like the message, or how it’s manifested, but that doesn’t mean the message – and the medium – don’t have value.
